Tag Archives: East Coast earthquake

Since Tuesday’s East Coast earthquake, there have been reports of the National Zoo’s animals’ unusual behavior in advance of the quake. Reportedly the lemurs issued their warning a full 15 minutes ahead of the quake being felt by humans. You may remember the stories of the elephants in Indonesia trying to break free of their chains before the disastrous tsunami hit.

I experienced this first-hand around 1970-71 or so. We were living in Marysville at the time. I was at a friend’s home along with our Doxie, Max. My friend also had a dog plus two Siamese cats. In addition, she was babysitting another dog, whose parents were out-of-town on vacation. It was a gorgeous day so I had left all the windows open at our house. Our husbands were playing tennis at the club. Weather forecasting then wasn’t what it is now.

Suddenly all the animals began acting “weird”. The sky turned a strange yellow-green and the air became very still. We kinda just sat there, saying “what the heck?”. Then the skies opened up and the rain poured. After we ran around the house closing windows, we decided – based on the animals’ strange behavior – to head for the basement. When the storm was over, we went back upstairs only to see trees down everywhere. It was as if someone had taken a massive chainsaw and cut down trees all around town to about 15-20 ft high. Huge trees were snapped off like they were toothpicks. Our vacationing friends had two big trees fall on either side of their home but missed hitting the home. The whole town was a mess. The National Guard was called in to keep people from entering the town so residents could start the massive clean-up process.